Spain's Newly Elected Leader to Pull Troops From Iraq

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MADRID, Spain (March 15) - The leader of Spain's victorious Socialists said Monday he will bring Spanish troops home from Iraq by June 30, fulfilling a campaign pledge a day after his party's win in elections overshadowed by terrorist bombings.

''It's evident that I considered the participation ... of our country an error,'' Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero said at a news conference.

''I think the military intervention was a political error for the international order, for the search for cooperation, for the defense of the United States.... I maintain the idea was an error,'' he said.




Zapatero said during his campaign that Spain's 1,300 troops, sent in the aftermath of last year's U.S.-led invasion, might stay if the United Nations assumed control of the peacekeeping operation.

Asked Monday to specify a date or condition for withdrawal, he said, ''I don't want to provide a date. I have expressed that June 30 is the limit ... established by the government of our country,'' he said, adding a date would be set after he formally takes over as prime minister, some weeks from now.

In Sunday's election the Socialists defeated the ruling Popular Party, jumping from 125 seats to 164 in the 350-member Congress of Deputies. The conservatives fell from 183 to 148.



The election followed last Thursday's train bombings, reportedly claimed by al-Qaida, that killed 200 people. On Monday, 243 people remained hospitalized, 11 in critical condition.

The conservatives' defeat was unexpected. Pre-election polls had projected the Popular Party, led by Mariano Rajoy, would win comfortably, and even some exit polls Sunday showed it might win. But when the ballots were tallied, the Socialists netted 10.9 million to the PP's 9.6 million. Turnout was 77 percent.

''Zapatero defeats Rajoy in an unprecedented election turnaround,'' Spain's biggest daily newspaper El Pais stated Monday in a banner front-page headline.

Millions of people across Spain took to the streets following the attacks. The government of Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar was accused of misleading voters by insisting that armed Basque separatists were the prime suspects even as evidence mounted of an Islamic link.

The Popular Party's loss marks the first time a government that backed the U.S.-led Iraq war has been voted out of office. A vast majority of Spaniards opposed the war.



Zapatero said Monday he would attempt to form a purely Socialist government, not a coalition with other parties.

The Spanish Socialist Workers Party ruled from 1982 to 1996 but was plagued by corruption scandals and lost power to Aznar's Popular Party in 1996.

[stormchazer]

Message Sent to Terrorist- Kill our people and we will run for the hills!